Claremont Conundrum: torn between Pomona & CMC

theboneyking
Sun, 01 Apr 2007 23:48:52 +0000

wakebdr- your aggressively negative generalizations of CMC are untrue and not helpful for anyone.

First off, it is not “a bunch of drunks” and is really nothing like one big frat. The North side of campus is more famous for its parties-- which usually involve some music and people standing around with beer in hand. The South part of campus is more reserved, and one of the dorms is sub free. You can always find a game of cards or Risk to play or a movie to watch. Sure there is drinking at CMC, but it’s not hard to find other stuff to do, and I really don’t think there is any pressure on anyone to drink. And guess what-- there is drinking at Pomona too (and most colleges I assume). I think the main difference is that the alcohol rules at CMC are somewhat more lax, so drinking occurs more openly.

I wouldn’t be too concerned about the leadership thing. There are plenty of out-going, ambitious leaders at Pomona. From my experience, CMC students do tend to think more about careers and usually have clearer ideas of what they want to do than Pomona students, but again this is a generalization and not true for all of the students at either school.

CMC is just as nurturing an environment as Pomona. Students regularly do research with professors (I am working with a history professor this semester and am only a freshman), and people usually have a wide variety of interests. This was actually one of my concerns before I came to CMC that luckily proved untrue. I love politics, but I do have other interests and want a balanced educational experience. While most people have at least a passing interest in public affairs or business, there is a huge diversity of interests at CMC. Sometimes it seems like everybody is double or dual majoring because they have trouble deciding on just one field. I know a government/ music major, a biology/ history major, and an international relations/ literature major to name a few. People are involved in theater productions, a cappella groups, dance clubs, newspapers, and many, many other activities. Just like it takes leadership ability to get into Pomona, it takes a variety of interests to get into CMC.

Anyway, I don’t know if this post will actually help you decide on a school, but I honestly don’t know if you can go wrong with either one. Anything that one school doesn’t have, you can usually take advantage of at the other one. You can be a CMC student and be in the Pomona College orchestra, or be a Pomona student and go on the CMC semester internship program in Washington, DC. If you want to apply ED, just do the best you can to figure where you think you would be happiest. And if you don’t get in ED to that school, you can always apply to the other one RD.